


A Day or Two

by Alania



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Take on Me - A-ha (Music Video)
Genre: (not so much when he was real), 9 out of 10 endings are angsty, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, CYOA, Choose Your Own Adventure, Cryley, F/M, Fluff and Angst, HEA is a diamond in the rough, Multiple Endings, No alternate relationships, POV Rey (Star Wars), Reylo - Freeform, Sometimes I just get hyper fixated on something and look out, Take on Me Video AU, crylo, this time around it was that video and how the guy looked like Adam when he was a drawing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 21:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19838818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alania/pseuds/Alania
Summary: A Reylo Choose Your Own Adventure fic inspired by the A-ha "Take on Me" video as well as Netflix's "Bandersnatch" and just a touch of Alice in Wonderland.Please read the instructions at the bottom of each chapter very carefully, DO NOT JUST CLICK NEXT CHAPTER! It won't make any sense.





	1. 1: Start Here

From her hiding place under the awning of her apartment complex, Rey considered all the different ways she could describe the phenomenon she observed beating down the sidewalks from above. “Rain” didn’t quite do it justice. “Act of God,” perhaps. “Mass flood”? No cars were floating by on the street just yet, but by how much water was accumulating on the sides, she thought it might not be too far off.

There was only one activity worth doing on a day as dark and wet as today: _Reading._ Unfortunately, she’d been caught entirely unprepared for this task. Every comic in her tiny New York apartment had been read, and re-read, and read a third time. She’d last managed a pitstop at Midtown Comics months ago, when her paycheck had reflected a meager few dollars extra from overtime she’d accumulated on an overnight shift at the pawnshop. Now she had the money, but hadn’t found a minute to spare to search for new material. 

Today was her first day off in weeks, and not even the solid sheet of water trying to soak pedestrians would be able to stop her from her goal. She’d get to that comic shop - she’d buy herself some new comics - and she’d hole herself up in her room with them as quickly as possible to forget reality for a little while.

She shrugged her yellow raincoat hood over her head, tightened the strings with purpose and determination, and splashed down on the first puddle she could find before streaking down the street in a run.

She arrived at Midtown Comics more soaked than if she’d taken a bath with her clothes on, but that didn’t seem to wipe the grin of triumph off her glistening face. 

The new release racks were all but empty. She’d come at a terrible time of the week, right before a restock - and her options were limited. She picked up a few favorites - the new Doctor Aphra was still on the shelf and she snatched it with a victorious hiss - before accepting that she would need to dig a little deeper to find something new to read on this rainy day.

She looked down each aisle, every topic. At least the search for something interesting would kill enough time for her to dry off a little. (A fruitless endeavor - she’d have to soak herself all over again on the way home.)

Her hands plucked up comics here and there, flipping through them in a casual assessment before choosing to keep them or put them back. She had a stack of six volumes ready to go when she hit the last aisle, turning to face its end cap. There were two different comics there. Dozens upon dozens of the same comic, two very different covers repeating themselves in a mesmerizing display that competed for her attention.

One, an original series. Something about bike racers, promising adventure and danger and a whole lot of testosterone being flung around in typical masculine fashion. There were several characters on the front cover, but the main protagonist’s legs were spread out in an exaggerated pose, with one of them aimed towards the front in terribly overdone foreshortening. His spurred brown cowboy boots took up a purposefully obnoxious amount of space.

Her nose scrunched up and her eyes rolled. Cover artists tried too hard to be dramatic. 

The second one was a series of comics based off the Star Wars sequels. She’d seen all the movies and knew who was whom on the page. At least the art was more realistic, the stylistic challenges of a lesser-known series no longer an issue when there were real-life people to use as a reference.

This was series #5 of what she knew to be a 12 series set that followed the completed trilogy of movies. And from what she’d seen so far, the storyline was so predictable it was hardly worth reading. They were following the beats of old plotlines with absolutely no subtlety. The climax to the storyline had been ripped off - the bad guy turns on his master to save the Jedi, just too late to save himself. Sacrifices himself. Dies heroically. Blah blah everyone else lives happily ever after.

Boring.

Rey hovered between the two choices, resolving to choose at least one to complete her purchase. The art of the Star Wars comic was so much more enjoyable to look at, and the entire cast was just - _gorgeous_ , honestly. But with the other comic, she had no idea what she’d be walking into.

Her eyes flickered from one to the other, frozen with indecisiveness.

* * *

**//DO NOT CLICK NEXT CHAPTER TO CONTINUE.//**

This is a short **Choose Your Own Adventure** story. Based on your choices, the path you decide Rey takes will determine the ending of this version of the fic. Your first choice is below - please follow the instructions to get to the next part of your choice of story.

**2A** \- Rey picks up the original series comic with stylistic art. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 2A.**

**2B** \- Rey chooses the Star Wars sequel comic #5. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 2B.**

**2C** \- Rey decides to take neither of them home. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 2C.**

**2D** \- Rey forgot her wallet and attempts to leave without paying. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 2C**

**CHAPTERS ARE LABELED IN THE CHAPTER INDEX. CHOOSE YOUR PATH TO CONTINUE.**


	2. 2A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2A: Rey picks up the original series comic with stylistic art.

The desire for original content won out over the urge to buy a comic just for its pretty cover. Rey grabbed the first comic quickly, dropping it on her pile and turning to head to the cashier before anything else could distract and delay her. She needed to get back home and actually read these before her precious few hours of freedom were over.

After covering her purchases in two plastic bags to protect them, she tucked them firmly under her raincoat and left the comic store with a victorious smile. The rain had slowed to a dull roar by then, falling straight down instead of sideways. The lack of wind had her counting her blessings. She made a run for it, managing to leap herself into the same puddle in front of her apartment complex that she’d jumped in when she’d left. 

The splash felt like a punctuation on a job well done.

The plastic-wrapped comics were dropped on an end table as she began to shed her clothing piece by piece, dropping it all on the floor while walking straight for the shower. Piece by piece she lost herself, until she was naked and shivering while the tiny shower spray took its sweet time to warm up.

She placed little worry on soaking the already stained carpet. She didn’t plan on living there much longer, anyway. Just a few more paychecks saved up.. and she was sure she’d find something better far away from the city if she tried.

The water went from chilly to scalding suddenly and she knew the tenant above her had just flushed his toilet, so she placed her fist in her mouth to stifle the screams and waited for the temperature to regulate.

Her shower didn’t take long. Soon enough she was wrapped in a cozy little kimono wrap, her toes were warming inside fuzzy Chewbacca slippers, and she was prepared to snuggle down into bed to read her comics.

She burrowed under her mountain of blankets and upended the bag of comics onto the sheets. She planned to dive into Aphra first, excited to see where her story was leading next. When she pulled out a comic, her expression squished in dismay at the giant leg sticking out at her. 

Well. Might as well give this one a try.

Opening the comic brought her a rush of relief. Whoever had done the cover was NOT the artist of the comic. The style was much more realistic in terms of proportions and facial features - no weird giant limbs or dramatic poses. It was sketchy, black and white and amateur looking, but something about the style endeared her immediately. She kind of loved it, despite the inconsistencies. 

She laid the comic out flat, turned herself around to lay on her belly, and began to read.

* * *

There was a line of bikers idling, all helmeted and ready to race. The destination was unclear. The reasoning unclear. Something about the way the men all glared at one another left a sense of danger on Rey’s tongue. There’s anger, there. Unhappiness. It’s never explained, and as far as Rey could see, it never would be - she hadn’t seen a word of dialogue yet. It’s left vague and open to interpretation, but the basic intent is clear - winning this particular race was important. She guessed there was a lot of money at stake, as is typical.

It all goes by in a blur. In fact, blur is a very good descriptor of the scenes she’s skimming through. The artist overused long brushstroke lines to his benefit, capturing a sense of speed and energy. Even Rey felt her heart race a little as the finish line came into view, screaming closer with every panel. It was clear that the character so awkwardly portrayed on the cover was the protagonist. The men racing with him seemed older, and so much angrier than he was.

Of course, he won. 

Something felt off about the wordless nature of the entire scene. She was impressed at how easily she could feel the emotions being invoked by simple line art and silent actions. The men who had lost were being drawn with more and more agitation. They felt like they were vibrating off the paper.

Rey turned to the next page. Quickly.

It was the first panel where the main character was given any major detail. Without the racing helmet, his hair was wild and wavy, falling to his shoulders in curved lines that expressed a surprising softness. Rey had never met anyone with hair like that, and felt a sense of loss about it. 

But no real man was ever as attractive as the drawings in the pages of a good comic book.

She lingered on the page for longer than she probably should have. The longer she stared, the more detail she managed to discover hiding in that simple scribble. She could see moles dotting his skin, barely visible. His eyes hadn’t looked like much at first glance, but now she could see the hint of mischief hiding just behind a black iris. She swore she could catch a tilt on the side of his lips, a curve that hadn’t been there before.

All of this was incidental because she knew better than to think the picture was changing in front of her, but the subtlety of those changes wouldn’t matter...

Because a moment later, the sketch winked.

It _winked._

Rey blinked, several times, and then sat up to rub her eyes with clenched fists. She knew she’d been overworking herself, but she’d never hallucinated movement in a comic book, before. It was cause for legitimate worry, if she was the type to worry at all.

Instead, she yawned, stretched her body out behind her, and looked back at the image. As expected, it was static and unchanged, that tiny smirk ever-present on his lips.

She focused on those lips, perhaps just a little too much.

She felt it was safe to admit, alone in her mind where no one could judge her, that this man, this drawing, this _character_ was the most beautiful human being she’d ever laid eyes on. And even if he were real, which he obviously _wasn’t_ , she would never have been able to speak to someone that hot. Ever.

So it was probably for the best that he wasn’t real after all.

She gave the slightest of smiles, as her fingers reached out to brush fondly against the flat surface that held his cheek. The paper felt rough and prickly, convincingly enough like stubble to make her breathe out a laugh.

Then the image shuddered, a grainy, pencil-drawn hand reached out from within the confines of the page she’d just been touching, and her laughter died in her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//DO NOT CLICK NEXT CHAPTER TO CONTINUE.//**
> 
> This is the next choice in this short **Choose Your Own Adventure** story. Based on your choices, the path you decide Rey takes will determine the ending of this reading of the fic. Please follow the instructions to get to the next part of your choice of story.
> 
> **3A** \- After a few panicked moments, Rey chooses to take the offered hand.
> 
> **3B** \- Convinced she’s hallucinating, Rey throws the comic across the room in horror.
> 
> **CHAPTERS ARE LABELED IN THE CHAPTER INDEX. CHOOSE YOUR PATH TO CONTINUE.**


	3. 2B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2B: Rey chooses the Star Wars sequel comic #5.

The longer she stared at that cover, the more her resolve wavered. The bad guy, Kylo Ren, looked more like a Disney prince than a villain; his hair was flowing in the nonexistent breeze, his big pouty lips caught in mid-tremble. They weren’t being very subtle about this guy and his eventual redemption, even at this point. The Jedi was pressed against him, back to back, fighting the guards with him. It all looked very dramatic, but Rey knew better. It all came crashing down on them, in the end.

Just not in this comic book. That was nearer to the end of the series. Here, things were still up in the air.

She’d liked the story, then. When things hadn’t been resolved and anything could happen.

That settled it for her. She grabbed the comic quickly, dropping it on her pile and turning to head to the cashier before anything else could delay her. She needed to get back home and actually read these before her precious few hours of freedom were over.

After covering her purchases in two plastic bags to protect them, she tucked them firmly under her raincoat and left the comic store with a victorious smile. The rain had slowed to a dull roar by then, falling straight down instead of sideways with the lack of wind causing her to count her blessings. She made a run for it in the rain, slamming into her apartment complex door as she hurried to unlock it and scuttle inside. She felt like she was holding a secret, underneath her raincoat. Her comics felt precious and private. That feeling, while always there, felt somehow amplified this time around.

Once she made it inside her home she dropped the plastic-wrapped comics on an end table as she began to shed her clothing, dropping it all on the floor while walking straight for the shower. Piece by piece she lost herself, until she was naked and shivering while the tiny shower spray took its sweet time to warm up.

She placed little worry on soaking the already stained carpet. She didn’t plan on living there much longer, anyway. Just a few more paychecks saved up and she was sure she’d find something better far away from the city if she tried.

The water went from hot to frozen suddenly and she knew the tenant above her had just flushed his toilet, so she yelped and rubbed her arms to warm herself while she waited for the temperature to regulate.

Her shower didn’t take long. Soon enough she was wrapped in a cozy little kimono wrap, her toes warming inside fuzzy Chewbacca slippers, and she prepared to snuggle down into the bed to read her comics.

She burrowed under her mountain of blankets and upended the bag of comics onto her bed. She planned to dive into Aphra first, excited to see where her story was leading next. When she pulled out a comic, the tense expressions of Kylo Ren and the Jedi greeted her instead. They practically demanded she dive in first. 

At least she could be quick, she told herself. She already knew this story, she was just here to enjoy the comic adaptation. 

From the moment she began, she knew she’d made the right choice.

* * *

The nameless Jedi had been tortured. Rey crinkled her nose; the biggest pet peeve she’d had with the movies was the fact that the main character, the Jedi, had never been given a name. She was an orphan, unnamed and unloved, until Finn and the Resistance had found her. It was so frustrating - even Finn had been given a name! But no, they just kept referring to her as the Jedi, and before that - the Scavenger. 

Rey rolled her eyes. The least she could have done would have been to name herself.

Rey flipped through some of the pages, quickly skimming. There, the girl fell to the ground. Now she was watching her friends die. And Snoke - the main villain - is cut down by Kylo Ren on the very next page. The comic wasn’t wasting any time getting to the good parts, it seemed.

When Rey turned the page, she saw a surprisingly elaborate adaptation of the battle that Kylo Ren and the Jedi fought together. Two whole pages had been mapped out for it - with stunning visuals of all the different kill strikes the two had performed in the movie. It was impressive, and visually entrancing.

And then it was over, and everything started to go to shit.

_The fleet!_

_It’s time to let old things die._

_Don’t do this.._

_You’re still holding on! LET GO._

_Say it._ _Say it._

_They were nobody._

_You’re nothing._

Rey let a big gust of a sigh cut through the silence of her bedroom. “You’re such an idiot.” She muttered to the page, shaking her head in dismay. “ _You’re nothing, but not to me._ Nice job, dumbass.”

She hadn’t yet looked at the last scene depicted on the page before admonishing Kylo for his poor choice of words. She’d simply remembered how he’d phrased them, just before holding his hand out for the Jedi to take. When she did look, however, the speech bubble for his last line was strangely empty.

She blinked, bending down closer to squint at it. Had they forgotten to print the line? It seemed an innocent error, easy to ignore. 

What was harder to ignore was the way his previous speech bubble, the one where he told the Jedi that she was nobody, was slowly _unwriting itself._

Letter by letter it was disappearing, until it, too, was an empty speech bubble.

And yet, the image of Kylo Ren was still holding his hand out. If anything, he looked more desperate than he had a moment ago, and just a little bit furious.

She tried to ignore the flicker of movement in his fingers. She tried to look away as the background, once a static sheet of red and orange to indicate the fire behind him, was now flickering with color and light.

But it was impossible to ignore the way that hand, the one that had been held out for the Jedi to accept, was now rising off of the very pages of the comic book and reaching out for Rey herself.

That was it, then. In her perpetual loneliness, she’d officially gone insane. What a shame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//DO NOT CLICK NEXT CHAPTER TO CONTINUE.//**
> 
> This is the next choice in this short **Choose Your Own Adventure** story. Based on your choices, the path you decide Rey takes will determine the ending of this reading of the fic. Please follow the instructions to get to the next part of your choice of story.
> 
> **3B** \- Convinced she’s hallucinating, Rey throws the comic across the room in horror.
> 
> **3C** \- After a few panicked moments, Rey chooses to take the offered hand.
> 
> **3D** \- Rey tries to talk her way through this logically.
> 
> **CHAPTERS ARE LABELED IN THE CHAPTER INDEX. CHOOSE YOUR PATH TO CONTINUE.**


	4. 2C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2C: Rey decides to take neither of them home.

Decisions were hard, and she had comics to read. Neither of the comics in front of her were jumping out at her enough to spend her hard-earned money on, which only meant one thing - she wanted nothing to do with either of them.

She’d already seen the Star Wars movies. And that obnoxious cover art made her think there was nothing of interest in the other comic. She turned and headed to the cashier to buy the comics she’d already chosen, confident that she wasn’t missing anything by leaving with one less comic that day.

After a thorough hot shower and a nice warm cup of tea, she sat and lost herself in the worlds that her new comics painted for her. It felt so good to forget who she was and what life had handed her, at least for a little while.

She only wished the feeling could have lasted. But after falling asleep with a vampire hunter comic plastered wet on the side of her drool covered cheek, she woke up the next morning to find her life waiting for her, as repetitive and exhausting as ever.

That was life, she supposed. Nothing ever changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	5. 2D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2D: Rey forgot her wallet and attempts to leave without paying.

If she took any longer to decide, Rey knew she’d never have the chance to actually read the comics that day. In her frustration, she grabbed them both and put them on top of her pile before heading towards the checkout. She balanced the pile in her left hand and reached for her wallet with her right - 

Oh.

_Oh no._

She froze in mid-step when she realized she was wearing her raincoat, devoid of pockets, specifically the kind of pocket that would have held a wallet with her cash and credit card -

A frustrated growl escaped her tight throat, but she stifled it quickly. Impatience was already starting to wear her thin, and she just knew that running home again would end up with her giving up and just staying in bed, wet and soggy and defeated.

A surge of determination ran through her. It forced her heart to race, and her blood to burn. She came to this comic store a million times - surely they would forgive her this once, if she decided to leave with the comics and pay the next time she showed up?

The rush, the thrill of it is dampened by just how _wrong_ she knew it was. Stealing isn’t like her. She’d never - this isn’t - why would she even -

She was halfway to the door, still warring with herself over her terrible decision, when a hand pressed down on her shoulder and her blood ran cold.

Her head turned, and her eyes met a pair of cold, narrow grey ones.

“The register is that way, miss.” She knew this guy. She knew that _he_ knew _her_. He couldn’t possibly think she’d do.. exactly what it was she was doing.. would he? 

“Hey, do you have the new Doctor Aphra?”

A gift in the form of a squeaky pre-pubescent voice caught the store worker’s attention, and Rey bolted like a rocket away from him the moment his head turned to answer the innocent question.

It wasn’t lost on her that the boy who’d saved her was looking for the exact comic she’d just stolen.

Nor is the irony lost on her that the comic in question is bought by him after her uncharacteristic attempt to steal failed miserably upon running headfirst into a pair of police officers on her way out of the store.

She got to see all the comics get put back on their shelves as she was questioned, booked, and eventually taken to small claims for a night in jail. There was a bright side to it all, she supposed. At least she would have the money she was going to need in order to pay her bail, once she gets her super to go into her apartment and get it from her wallet.

Spending the night alone in jail wasn’t exactly what she’d hoped for on her night off from work, but as she sat in the silence of the lonely cell and thought back to how she’d found herself there, she realized this was exactly what she deserved. What could have gotten into her, anyway? This wasn’t like her. She never would have tried to steal from her favorite comics store - from ANYWHERE, really.

She felt like a woman possessed. Or at the very least, exorcised from a possession, because the last thing she ever wanted to do in her entire life again is to steal.

Or read comics, after all of this.

A good thing, too - since she’s now banned from Midtown Comics for life.

That’s life, she supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	6. 3A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3A: After a few panicked moments, Rey chooses to take the offered hand.

So, maybe she hadn’t been seeing things after all.

Rey jolted backward when the hand emerged from the pages of her comic book, sketchy fingers outstretched and curling to entice her to take it. Her heart had stopped beating at some point, but now it raced painfully as she stared and wondered if she was actually losing her mind.

It was him. That mischievous set of eyes were still looking _directly at her_ from the comic, and without any proof she just _knew_ that hand belonged to him. He was reaching out to her - this creature of nonexistence, with a face so beautiful she refused to believe it could ever be real. He was telling her, with the same silence the entire comic had been written in, that she could join him.

As terrifying as this moment in her life actually was, the offer itself sounded like exactly the kind of break from reality she’d been dying for.

And if she were to take his hand, and be transported somewhere unreal, what harm could it actually do? She would wake up the next day with the comic plastered to her face, and realize that she’d been dreaming the entire experience up all night long. While she certainly didn’t feel like she was dreaming now, that was still a reasonable possibility. When she thought about it that way, the choice was clear.

Dreams were meant to be enjoyed, for they were fleeting and never meant to last.

As she slid her fingers down into the hand, it felt delicate, just like paper. It made her smile to think that this feeling, this texture she could perceive against her fingertips, was the most real thing she’d felt in a very long time. Maybe in her entire life.

And then the hand pulled, and she was enveloped in that feeling. Everything felt like that hand. Her skin, her face, the very air she was breathing seemed to crinkle in front of her. It all felt thin and fragile, like paper.

Because that’s what she was, in that moment.

Paper.

And so was he.

She opened her mouth to speak, but her jaw hung open and useless as she looked up, and up, until her eyes met his. He was impressively tall, but with a natural grace that the cover artist had failed to properly capture. Once she realized she was just gawking at him wordlessly, she worried that she’d be cursed with silence now that she was caught in this world. His drawn lips tilted upward in what she could effectively perceive as a smug smile, and something about that smugness knocked her disbelief down a peg.

Gorgeous as he was, she felt the shock value draining away now that she was in front of him.

“Ben.” He spoke - it shuddered through her physically, the feel of the word sifting the fibers of whatever paper she was currently residing in. His voice was deep, thick like molasses. It made her feel sluggish, and she blinked slowly before realizing exactly what he’d said.

“Huh?”

“My name.” He replied to her less than eloquent reaction, his smile only growing. “I know you were wondering.”

The facade of his perfection shattered with a sound like ripping paper in her nonexistent ears.

“I wasn’t, actually.” She pointed out, her lips twisting in a smirk. “But it’s nice to meet you, Ben. Want to tell me exactly what I’m doing inside your comic book?”

He reached out, holding his hand out to her again. Without a moment’s hesitation, she took it - then she stared at her hand, realizing she’d done so. It felt easy, like breathing. And she didn’t regret it.

Weird.

“Not sure what you mean, but I am glad you came over to this side of things. I saw you looking at me, you know.”

Rey knew that if the comic had been in full color, she would have been blushing. “That’s what you _do_ , with comics. You look at them. That’s - the point.”

He tugged her hand until she was closer. All the snark she’d been building up when Ben had exposed his smugness was lost, when she was this close. 

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?” She asked, staring helplessly up at him.

“Looking.”

Shit.

“Are you going to tell me your name?” He asked after a beat, clearly more than happy to let her get her fill of _looking_ for as long as she wanted, as long as she kept talking to him.

“Rey.”

“Rey.” He repeated the name like a sigh, and the sweetness of it put her on edge. Her hand slid out of his; her critical nature began to question exactly what was going on. Sometimes, things really could be too good to be true.

“Can you explain any of this?” She asked him, observing the gentle but slightly clueless expression on his handsome, barely sketched out face. “Do you think this is real? Any of this? Because I’ve got to tell you...”

Her words faded off when he reached out and took her hand again, tugging her to walk beside him. Even through the strange, crinkly feeling his skin and hers created, she felt warmth coming through his fingertips that really shouldn’t have been there. It distracted her, kept her attention away from the goal he was leading her towards. She’d seen him cross it during his race, but it wasn’t the finish line itself that he seemed intent on showing her. It was the winner’s circle.

There was a mirror, there. When Rey finally noticed it, her head tilted and her lip curled up in confusion. That made zero sense.

But what, in all of this, did?

Ben dropped her hand and walked around to the other side of the mirror, letting her stand in front of it alone. It showed no reflection - of course it didn’t, why would it do something as _reasonable_ as a mirror fulfill its proper intent and show a reflection? Instead, it bloomed with color and a sense of reality that the cobbled-together drawings around her lacked.

It was the real world. It was her _bedroom._ It was the exact spot on her bed that she’d been sitting on a few minutes ago. The indent of her body was still there, and she just knew it was probably still warm under the covers from her body heat.

This was how he’d gotten to her.

“Sorry, princess.” His deep voice had a chuckle in it, and it startled her out of her stunned reverie. “Hate to disappoint you, but we know. And winning that race - as dangerous as it was - was my only way out.”

Out.

Rey’s eyes were still on the image of her bedroom.

Out, he’d said.

She remembered seeing his hand coming through, reaching for her. Calling to her, as if she was what he’d wanted.

She, and not the bedroom on the other side of this prize of his, this window into another world.

“You used me.” She sighed out. There was no anger burning in her. Only cold, unsurprised disappointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//DO NOT CLICK NEXT CHAPTER TO CONTINUE.//**
> 
> This is a short **Choose Your Own Adventure** story. Based on your choices, the path you decide Rey takes will determine the ending of this reading of the fic. Your next choice is below - please follow the instructions to get to the next part of your choice of story.
> 
> **4A** \- Rey doesn’t wait another second. She walks through the portal, back to her own world. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 4A**
> 
> **4B** \- Rey hesitates. **Please go to the Chapter labeled 4B**
> 
> **CHAPTERS ARE LABELED IN THE CHAPTER INDEX. CHOOSE YOUR PATH TO CONTINUE.**


	7. 3B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3B: Convinced she’s hallucinating, Rey throws the comic across the room in horror.

Nope. No, no, that was _unacceptable_ , Rey was convinced she was having a psychotic hallucination and she was about to lose everything she’d worked so hard for because overworking herself had literally driven her _insane_. She screamed, tossing the comic off of her bed before running out of the room to throw cold water on her face.

It took her several hours before she could return to her room, after assuring herself that she knew better than to believe she actually saw a hand coming out of the comic book. When she carefully tiptoed over to the discarded comic and flipped it over with one hesitant finger, she found it as flat and unremarkable as ever.

It was a relief and a wake-up call.

Under the impression that losing herself in comic books had become an unhealthy obsession, she was resolved to never have a repeat of the horrifying episode she’d experienced.

In a small bonfire lit inside a trash can on her balcony, Rey burned the comic book that had offended her. Then she burned all of her comic books. Every single one, even the ones that had first gotten her into the hobby and held sentimental value. Each and every one of them was dropped into the fire, without a single look back.

From now on, she was going to live solely in the real world. If that meant moving out earlier than she’d expected and finding a healthier job and lifestyle, then so be it.

Anything was better than going crazy and seeing a man’s cartoon hand coming out of a comic book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	8. 3C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3C: After a few panicked moments, Rey chooses to take the offered hand.

So, maybe she hadn’t been seeing things after all.

Rey jolted backward when the hand emerged from the pages of her comic book, long fingers outstretched and curling to entice her to take it. Her heart had stopped beating at some point, but now it raced painfully as she stared and wondered if she was actually losing her mind.

It was him. The villain of the Star Wars saga, the conflicted dark sider who’d killed his own father in cold blood. He was reaching out to her - the same way he’d reached out to the Jedi, as he had in the movie. She remembered all the theories that had cropped up when that hand was lifted in the trailer - was it Kylo? Hux? Finn in disguise? Was Kylo holding his hand out FOR Hux??? The stretches had been monumental, but the movie had shut them all up. He’d asked the Jedi to join him, and she’d turned on him instead.

But this hand, despite being a mirror image of the one she’d seen on the screen, was reaching out for _her_. Kylo Ren was telling her, without any terrible dialogue, that she could join him.

Inside of a comic book.

As terrifying as this moment in her life was, the offer itself sounded like exactly the kind of break from reality she’d been dying for.

And if she were to take his hand, and be transported somewhere unreal, what harm could it do? She would wake up the next day with the comic plastered to her face, and realize that she’d been dreaming the entire experience up all night long. While she certainly didn’t feel like she was dreaming now, it was a reasonable possibility. When she thought about it that way, the choice was clear.

Dreams were meant to be enjoyed, for they were fleeting and never meant to last.

His hand felt like well-oiled leather when she took it. It was disconcerting, how real it felt. As her fingers slid against his palm, she chanced one surreptitious look between the comic book and the pages to check if she was being pranked. Was there someone just sticking a hand through her bed? Was she on one of those Funniest Home - she was going to kill her boss if she’d set her up like this, knowing how she felt about comics -

When she picked up the comic book, she felt her hand lighten with the loss of weight against it. She dropped it again, and the leather-clad fingers that had reached out for her were gone.

Just - gone.

She pressed down on the page, and her fingers followed all of the dialogue that had returned to its proper place.

As if none of this strangeness had ever happened.

As if she’d just hallucinated it all.

She flopped back on her bed, and only realized several minutes later that she was crying. Her fingers reached up to brush the tears away, and the scent hit her like a brick. Leather. Oil. Her fingers smelled like his glove.

“Fuck.” She whispered up into the air, crushed.

She’d doubted for just one single moment, that was all.

Just one moment.

And now she would be doomed to wonder for the rest of her life if any of it had been real.

Somehow, this felt worse than never having experienced any of it at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	9. 3D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3D: Rey tries to talk her way through this logically.

So, maybe she hadn’t been seeing things after all.

Rey jolted backward when the hand emerged from the pages of her comic book, long fingers outstretched and curling as if they were enticing her to take it. Her heart had stopped beating at some point, but now it raced painfully as she stared and wondered if she was actually losing her mind.

It was him. The villain of the Star Wars saga, the conflicted dark sider who’d killed his own father in cold blood. He was reaching out to her - the same way he had reached out to the Jedi, like he had in the movie. She remembered all the theories that had cropped up when that hand was lifted in the trailer - was it Kylo? Hux? Finn in disguise? Was Kylo holding his hand out FOR Hux??? The stretches had been monumental, but the movie had shut them all up. He’d asked the Jedi to join him, and she’d turned on him instead.

But this hand, despite being a mirror image of the one she’d seen on the screen, was reaching out for _her_. Kylo Ren was telling her, without any terrible dialogue, that she could join him.

Inside of a comic book.

As terrifying as this moment in her life was, the offer itself sounded like exactly the kind of break from reality she’d been dying for.

“Okay,” She whispered into the air, as she slowly reached out her hand, “Okay. Let’s think about this for a second. If you’re hallucinating, you could be caught in it forever and never know. Not so awful, as long as you don’t get killed and end up braindead in a coma.” Her fingers pulled back at the thought - there was every possibility that Kylo Ren would kill her. He’d killed lots of people. But at this moment in the movie...

“If you’re not hallucinating, you’re about to join this guy and rule the galaxy. Also pretty cool. Except it’s terrible and you can’t actually do that, Rey. Come on. You know he’s wrong.” For one split second though, the idea of being in control of the entire fictional galaxy of Star Wars sounded _amazing_. It was worth a fleeting consideration, at least.

“Can you hear me?” She whispered, finally speaking directly to the comic. In response, the image of Kylo Ren in the scene right above the reaching hand blinked - _Jesus, that’s terrifying,_ she thought - and his head tilted in an imperceptible nod. When she thought she could speak again without throwing up, she reached out to his hand again. “I’d tell you that this isn’t going to go the way you think, but you’d probably kill me for being so cliche.”

She waited for his hand to pull away. Instead, the image above flickered with a twitch on his left cheek, pulling his pouty lip up in the faintest smirk. The fingers extended further, just slightly, just like they had in the movie. 

“Oh, what the hell,” Rey muttered under her breath, sliding her fingers into his glove. They squeezed down on the hand, just to feel how real it was, and heard the soft squeak of well-oiled leather. Then she squeezed harder as if to get his attention.

“I know karate,” she warned him. “Don’t try anything funny.”

The warning received no reaction from the now-still image above the hand, but the hard yank of it made Rey yelp as she was pulled, falling headfirst through space that felt like nothing at all. She was tumbling, and there was a light at the very bottom of whatever she was falling from - orange, and flickering. 

Of all the things she feared at that moment, dying from the impact of landing was not one of them. She knew she was careening towards what would inevitably be a hard floor, but she also knew none of this was real enough for that to be a legitimate fear, and she covered her eyes with her hands to hide from the view of impact.

Suddenly, she _wasn’t_ falling, and she _was_ standing in the throne room, in the exact spot the Jedi had been standing. Across from her was Kylo Ren. Tall, imposing, sweaty, and conflicted. Yeah, that was him all right.

But his hands were at his sides. And his eyes were trained narrowly on her.

“Dumbass?”

… Now that was a word she never would have thought she’d hear out of the deep, gravelly voice of Kylo Fucking Ren, soon-to-be Supreme Leader of the First Order and all that jazz. Yet it fell from his lips as if he’d been born to swear, easy and comfortable. And it was all her fault.

Whoops.

“Didn’t realize you could hear me, obviously..” Rey grumbled, under her breath. “ _Sorry._ ”

“Are you?” He snapped out. “Sorry. Really.” He was in an awful mood, and she couldn’t blame him. This moment in his life had been upended quite awfully, though she thought he had no one to blame but himself. The look on her face was anything but remorse, and he knew it.

“For being heard? Yeah. For calling you a dumbass? Not so much.”

And then he surged forward, and Rey felt all those previous fears surface about this endeavor being her last. She took several steps back as he stomped towards her. One large step more and he was fully in her personal space, glaring down with the intensity of a god.

This was such a huge mistake.

“And what would you have me say?” He asked, through gritted teeth and a tense jaw. “What do you want? What words are meant to convince you to turn away from the lies of the Resistance? If not the truth, then what? _What_ , Rey?”

She blinked, startled by a number of things he’d just thrown at her, but choosing to address the last one first.

“You know my name.” It was a question framed as a statement, and it made his eyes narrow. She refused to look away from those eyes, even if they succeeded in their obvious goal of burrowing their way through to her soul. A quick breath for courage, and then; “I never said my name out loud. Not even at the store. How-”

“What are you _talking about._ ” He interrupted her, anger making way for frustration. “Make sense, Rey. We don’t have time to waste.”

This entire twisted scenario had just turned twelve shades more surreal. A possibility snuck into her mind, as asinine as it was. But then again, if she’d just traveled into the pages of a comic book, at what point was she supposed to start questioning whether something made sense or not?

So she probed, as gently as she could, with vague questions meant to clear her confusion without alerting him tremendously to the folly of his ways. She thought long, and hard, about the best way to ask him whether he thought she was the Jedi from the movie, in a way that didn’t make her sound like she was losing her mind. She knew she had to be very, very careful.

“You know you’re just a story, right?”

(She failed.)

Kylo sharply turned his back on her to march through the remains of the room. For the briefest of moments, she thought he was abandoning her. She was going to have to figure all of this out alone. Before she could panic, he stopped. With his back still facing her, his head bowed imperceptibly in the slightest hint of defeat.

“I suppose I deserve that.” He said. His head tilted just enough for her to catch a glimpse of his profile. He looked _hurt_. It was a good look on him.

 _Focus,_ she told herself. Hot or not, he was still probably going to kill her.

“I tell you that you’re nothing, that you have no place in this story, as if being a part of this legacy is something you should have _ever_ wanted, and you lash out with that. I admit it. Tragic and lonely as your life has been, I still would have traded with you in a heartbeat. For all of it.”

The importance of trying to figure out just how far down this little rabbit hole went was obstructed by a sudden wave of disconcerting anger. She knew the Jedi’s story. Orphaned, abandoned, left to fend for herself in a cruel and unforgiving world. It sounded just a _little_ too familiar when she thought too hard about it. She knew Kylo’s story, too - at least, the story the movies had presented. Busy moms and deadbeat dads still sounded better than suffering alone as a child in the desert with barely enough food to eat and no one to turn to.

She’d related to the Jedi. A lot more than she’d realized. And Kylo dared compare his life, his suffering, his loss - to hers?

She puffed up with indignation.

“Now hang on a second-”

But he interrupted her. _Again._

With a sharp wave of his hand, he silenced her and turned to face her. “But none of that matters now. The past can’t touch us anymore. Don’t you see that? Or do you still refuse to look past what you long for most and find your answers elsewhere?” _Here_ , he left unsaid. _With me._

This was getting too real, too fast. She knew he wasn’t talking to her. Didn’t mean her. Couldn’t understand that the woman he was begging for wasn’t standing in front of him anymore-

“HOLY SHIT!” She exclaimed, finally looking down at herself and catching a glimpse of the battle-scarred movie-accurate outfit she was wearing. Her hands flew up to the back of her head - and yes, there was the little bun holding half of her hair up while the rest flowed against her shoulders.

Even the thick of her upper arm ached - a sure sign that she’d been scarred there by a Praetorian guard.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, even quieter. She wasn’t just in the Jedi’s place. She _was_ the Jedi.

Looking up to catch Kylo’s eyes again, she saw the first inklings of suspicion take form. Perhaps it was the sudden curse or the way she took stock of her own body as if it wasn’t hers. She had to choose, and quickly. Did she continue to try and explain to him that she wasn’t the girl from the story? Or did she flow with it, and see where being the Jedi could lead? 

Every second that ticked by while she scrambled to decide had Kylo drifting further and further towards the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//DO NOT CLICK NEXT CHAPTER TO CONTINUE.//**
> 
> This is the next choice in this short **Choose Your Own Adventure** story. Based on your choices, the path you decide Rey takes will determine the ending of this reading of the fic. Please follow the instructions to get to the next part of your choice of story.
> 
>  **4C** \- Continue to try and convince Kylo of the truth.
> 
>  **4D** \- Go with the flow. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
> 
> **CHAPTERS ARE LABELED IN THE CHAPTER INDEX. CHOOSE YOUR PATH TO CONTINUE.**


	10. 4A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4A: Rey doesn’t wait another second. She walks through the portal, back to her own world.

The truth was simple. It was right in front of her. But if he thought he was going to trap her here and take over her life as his own, he was wrong - and not very smart. He’d left her right in front of the portal out, and she took advantage of it. _Quickly._

Jumping through felt like being filled up with air, like a balloon expanding within her. She screamed through it all, which meant she was screaming into a silent room when she finally realized she’d returned. She was face down on her bed, her screams muffled into her pillow for several seconds before the embarrassment finally stopped her.

And there, on the bed, laid the extremely inconspicuous comic book. It was open exactly where she’d left it, on the page with the close-up sketch of the man she’d just run from, looking up as though his eyes were directly on her.

But he was just a drawing. He _wasn’t real_. She _was._

And she intended to keep it that way.

If she felt a twinge of guilt twist her gut when she picked up the comic book and registered the sadness behind his frozen eyes, she wouldn’t dare admit it. She crumpled the comic up into a ball and grabbed the rest of the comics she’d bought along with it. She was going to forget this ever happened, and _never let it happen again._

In a small bonfire lit inside a trash can on her balcony, Rey burned the comic book that had offended her. Then she burned all of her comic books. Every single one, even the ones that had first gotten her into the hobby and held sentimental value. Each and every one of them were dropped into the fire, without a single moment’s hesitation.

From now on, she vowed, she was going to live solely in the real world. If that meant moving out earlier than she’d expected and finding a healthier job and lifestyle, then so be it. She was prepared to start living the life that had possibly, _maybe_ almost been stolen from her.

Time would allow the memory of those intense eyes, and the feel of his hand in hers, fade. Eventually, she would convince herself it was nothing but a dream. Or, considering the heartache that lingered, maybe it was more of a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	11. 4B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey hesitates.

“You used me.”

She dared to look up into his eyes as she said it. Instantly, she regretted everything.

He looked absolutely crushed.

After a few moments of stunned silence, a twinge of anger escaped through his voice and his clenched teeth. “I didn’t.” He told her, brows furrowed deep. “I didn’t need you to get out. I didn’t bring you here for - I just - I saw _you_. I looked, really got to look for the first time, and that’s what I saw. Not freedom. Not anybody else. Just you.”

Her guilt is shoved away by the more prevalent surge of _something_ that grabs her heart and clenches down _hard._ She couldn’t stop the audible shudder of her breath if she had tried. 

“Well.” She huffed out, attempting to find some semblance of decorum despite how visibly affected she was by his words. “Well.” She repeated, with a little more force. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you, I couldn’t possibly have known better, and from experience I’ve always found the worst intentions are usually the real ones. So.” She bit her lip, begging a bit of forgiveness with a shy look. “... sorry.”

The mirror glass trembled, pulling her attention away. Its reflection of her bedroom faded into something entirely unexpected. It was still just as real, just as colorful, but it was now the other side of the room they were standing in. The mirror had become a window - showing her what this sketchy world would look like if it wasn’t just the black and white sketches of an artists work.

His movement caught her eye, and she’s drawn to him again. She made to follow but he stopped her, his hands pressed firmly on her shoulders in a silent plea. _Stay_ , they told her. She listened.

Then he walked behind the window, and took her breath away once again.

Gone are all the rough lines and the dark shading and the starkness of black and white. He bloomed in her vision, a man-made of flesh and blood, heat and color. She surged forward, her hands pressed against the window before she realized what she was doing, but relief hit her when his hands mimicked the desperation and he matched her palms to his. They’re so much bigger than hers. She could see his fingers over the tops of hers, but she felt nothing of the warmth that he’d given her before. Just cold, solid glass.

It was a different kind of intimacy. She can’t feel him, but she can see him, now. Really _see_ him. And just as she’d imagined, he was utterly beautiful.

“Who _are_ you?” She whispered, and her breath was stolen by the laugh lines that darkened from his smile.

“I could tell you, everything about me, everything on the page. But does it matter?” 

“Honestly?” A thread of amusement laced through her breathy voice. “Yeah. I want to know it. I paid good money for this.”

His head tilted back in a laugh that threatened to ruin her. But he agreed, because it’s what she wanted, and he seemed only interested in giving her exactly that. So he pulled away from the opposite side of the mirror, coming around again to take her hand back in his and give her back the warmth she found she’d already sorely missed. This time, when he led her away, it was back to more sketches, scenes that seemed to appear just as they stepped into them; like magic.

He told her about his childhood, his father who’d taught him how to ride, and how to survive. He’d died on the very motorcycle Ben had used to win this race with. It even had its own name; the Falcon. Ben had renovated the pile of scrap, unafraid of what had happened to his father on it. Unafraid of the bloodshed on its frame. Unafraid of anything, Rey imagined.

Unafraid even of facing the truth of his own existence, or of jumping straight into another one.

He told her about the men who’d lost to him, and how sure he was that they were to blame for his father’s death. Jealous, despicable creatures, written just to bring him trouble. _That’s how they keep a story interesting_ , she told him. He didn’t seem assuaged.

“I don’t know what’s coming,” He admitted, waving vaguely in the air as if to gesture towards the invisible pages of the comic book. “But if I had to guess, they’re about ready to try and kill me off, too. Pride’s a dangerous sin. I should know.” He winked, smirking like an absolute scoundrel. “I’m extremely proud of how hard I smoked them. But I’m proud, not stupid. I’m not interested in sticking around long enough to find out exactly how they plan to exact their revenge.”

“You say that like you’re already so sure this is all going to work out for you.” Rey said. She lifted their intertwined hands and held his up, exposing his sketched out fingers. “You’re not exactly what my side of that glass is used to working with, you know. You might walk through that thing and then - nothing. What then?”

He leaned in, his face too close for comfort. There’s a grin on his face that’s just this side of dangerous, threatening just as much as it’s alluring. “What’s the fun of trying something if you already know the outcome? Don’t tell me you’re the type who looks before she leaps.”

“As a matter of fact-”

“Because I’ll feel obliged to point out that you saw a hand reaching out at you from a book and you took it without thinking twice, so that’s bullshit sweetheart.”

Her mouth opened and shut, a handful of times. Then she pursed her lips and slumped in defeat.

“I _want_ to make better decisions. I’m just not there... yet.”

“Good,” Ben growled out, bending in to press his face against the top of her head. “I still have time to enjoy bad decision Rey before she grows sick of me.”

She didn’t say it out loud, but she found it _very_ hard to believe anyone could get sick of him. She figured he didn’t need the ego boost, however - so she kept it to herself.

“Ready to make a bad decision right now, come to think of it.” He told her, tugging her away from the race tracks and motorcycles he’d been showing off to her during his stories, and back to the mirror waiting for them at the winner’s circle. She lagged, tugging back on his insistent pull as they got closer to it. The thought of him trying to walk through that glass and end up - what? Real? Shredded paper? _Obliterated out of existence?_ There were too many possibilities and her imagination was running so far away from her it had already thrown her into a full-blown anxiety attack.

“You can’t just - “

“Watch me, princess.”

She couldn’t stop him if she tried. Which she did. Fervently. He was barreling towards that thing full speed ahead, and there was nothing she could do except close her eyes.

And then they did stop.

She opened one eye, just enough to peek, and saw the reason standing directly in front of Ben, holding a wrench threateningly close to his skull.

Both her eyes opened, and she registered that they were surrounded. And in a lot of trouble, judging by the way these men glared at them both.

“Nobody leaves, Solo. You know that.” The man in front of Ben huffed out. He sounded like a smoker - and for a split second, Rey considered the humor in how dangerous smoking was when you lived in a world made of paper.

The amusement was short-lived.

“Your father tried this stunt. You don’t want to end up like your father, do you boy?” This time the voice - startlingly similar to the first - came from a man off to the side. They all wore motorcycle helmets and dingy, dirty looking jumpsuits. They looked so alike, so devoid of personal detail.

The artist clearly had no interest in defining their personalities.

She felt Ben’s arm curl around her body, wrapping her possessively in what she thought was some kind of protective hug. His eyes never broke away from the glare he held with the man in front of him, even as he slowly, subtly shifted just enough to the left. 

She couldn’t parse exactly what happened next. 

She felt a lurch as she was shoved forward, barrelling through the mirror and tumbling into dead space. She felt everything inside of her expand like a balloon within her. She screamed through it all, which left her screaming into a silent room when she finally realized she’d returned. She was face down on her bed, her screams muffled into her pillow for several seconds before the embarrassment finally stopped her.

She was back in her apartment. Back in reality. And she was alone.

Before the vertigo even had a chance to fade, she grabbed the comic book strewn out on the bed in front of her. Her hands flipped quickly through the pages, reading through scenes that couldn’t have possibly been there before she’d entered the book. He was there, being threatened by a man with a wrench - and the wrench was falling, crashing down on the glass beside Ben when he’d dodged this first initial blow.

The glass that had been his only chance was in pieces. She looked at the final frame of the page, her throat closing up as pain shot through her. He was on his knees, staring down at the shattered pieces of his only chance at a new life - and behind him, closing in with their wrenches raised to attack, were all of the other racers.

She didn’t want to turn the page.

The room lost all ambient sound save for the crinkle of paper. She took the corner of the page between her fingertips to lift, and that crinkle was as loud as thunder. She could hardly bear to listen to it flooding her senses, warning her to stop, stop now, while she still could.

The page fell away, exposing the next frame in full. It was just one image, filling the entire page. Just one image.

Shattered glass surrounded a beaten man on the ground, collapsed in defeat. It was Ben. 

There were no pages left in the comic book.

Rey’s shaking fingers traced the unnatural jut of his legs splayed out on the page. His lines were blurring, but she quickly realized that the tears in her eyes were to blame for that. She blinked, and they fell, staining the page with dark circles. They fell all over Ben, wrinkling the page as the paper soaked each of her tears up.

Then she closed her eyes and laughed. It was a soft and pathetic sound, a huff of laughter for just how unreal all of this was. She was crying over the death of a cartoon. A drawing on the page, reprinted hundreds of thousands of times. A number of lines and swirls and dots all coming together to create one image.

But even as she thought of it, she knew that wasn’t why she cried. She cried for the man hiding behind the pages, the one who’d seen her and taken her hand. The man who’d lost his father, and then lost his chance at freedom - at life - just to save hers.

To her, Ben had been as real as anyone she’d ever met. And now he was dead.

No matter how improbable, her tears were mourning something real. A real loss.

And she couldn’t convince herself otherwise.

So she stopped trying.

And just like that, all the sound around her came rushing back into her senses. The fan in her room whirred cool air against her neck. The distant honking of evening traffic snuck in through her window. The rhythmic thudding of fists against her hallway walls beat as steadily as the rain outside.

The latter was not a typical sound in her bedroom. Her eyes opened and narrowed, right before swiveling off of the bed to skid into the hallway on slippery socks, slamming her shoulder into the wall to stop her.

The sight before her defied description. It was Ben, of course it was - and yet, only some of him. His body flickered back and forth between flesh and shaky scribbles, with several strong points of stability covering his body. Round, solid, filled in, and -

Wet.

Rey's heart plummeted.

She rushed back into her bedroom, staring down at the page. Ben was still lying there, but the image wavered, fighting for control just as hard as the man in her hallway was. And she could see, at each tender plot where one of her tears had fallen, the ink had bled away to nothing.

She placed her hand on the image, wincing as she heard him screaming from the other side. She felt warmth escaping the page against her hand, like a life bleeding away. Dying, all over again.

Her hand smeared down all of Ben, from top to bottom, wiping the image away with the stain of her tears. Just like that, he was gone. 

The thumping stopped.

Rey stared at her doorway, waiting for something. Anything. Some indication that she hadn't just destroyed Ben altogether.

Nothing happened for far longer than she was comfortable with. But eventually, his large form lurched forward, filling the doorway. Heaving, out of breath, hair plastered to his face with sweat - or was it her tears that had him soaked like that? - regardless of how, what mattered was that he was there. He’d made it out. 

He was free.

He never quite seemed to catch his breath, even when he came to her. His knees hit the bed, crunching the comic book beneath his weight, and she felt the wet slide of his hands on her cheeks. In his eyes, there was a lot of gratitude waiting to spill out.

She shut it all off by surging up into his arms with a kiss.

They had a _lot_ they would have to figure out together. But later. Much, much, _much_ later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. (CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE DISCOVERED THE GOOD ENDING.) TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	12. 4C

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4C: Continue to try and convince Kylo of the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific trigger warning: Non-explicit death scene (that doesn't end up being real anyway)

No matter how tempting it was to try and live a life that wasn’t her dull day to day grind, Rey wasn’t going to lie to him - or anyone. Even if this was a dream, or some kind of hallucination, or even a practical joke - she decided not to play along.

“I know what you must be thinking,” She started, carefully watching his footsteps as he closed in on her once more. What had once been desperation in his movements had now turned predatory - he was no longer looking at her as though he wanted her to join him, or be with him, or even be in the same room. 

“And you’re right,” She huffed out. “I’m not who you think I am. You reached out to me on my world, and I thought - I thought maybe -”

She wondered if this was what Han Solo had felt - the surprise that comes before the pain, or even the recognition that yes, these were your last few seconds alive. At first, there was nothing but a loud rush of buzzing in the ears, and body freezing shock.

Rey looked down to see a blue beam of deadly light struck through her, impaling her body. _Nice of him to use the Jedi’s lightsaber, _she thought. His own, strewn about on the ground somewhere, would have probably hurt a lot more.__

__And yet, she didn’t feel the pain of it. If anything, it felt like he’d just cut her loose from something holding her down, as though the threads of gravity were so easy to pluck. She felt light and weightless. Of course, she did - he couldn’t kill her. That wasn’t part of the story._ _

__He was just letting her go._ _

__He bent in, his face inches from her own, and a soft hiss blew his warm breath against her skin until her eyelids began to flutter and close. When he whispered, she felt a certain sense of loss. It would have been nice, perhaps, to be his for just a little while._ _

__But she wasn’t._ _

__“Bring. Back. My. Jedi.” Were the words he whispered against her fading form, his breath blowing her gently off of her feet, off of the page, until even the very light of the room itself was blown out like a candle._ _

__She felt like she was floating, until she wasn’t. The very heavy weight of reality settled back on her shoulders soon enough, and her eyes opened again to stare up with dismay at her chipped bedroom ceiling._ _

__She was home._ _

__Or more likely, she’d never really left. She felt groggy, typical of when she’d wake up from a bad dream. When she took stock of herself, it looked like she’d fallen asleep against her comic books, with the Star Wars one splayed open on the final pages and her drool painting the colors darker where it touched._ _

__She felt an emptiness gnawing at her inside, and not the kind her near-constant hunger caused. She’d lost something, very crucial, in her dreams._ _

__But she couldn’t quite put her finger on what._ _

__It was late, she realized when she looked at the clock. She hadn’t even eaten dinner yet, but her stomach felt tight and closed. So she turned over onto her back, closed her eyes again, and ignored the sting of tears threatening to pinch out in favor of simply getting more sleep._ _

__She had a long day of work ahead of her tomorrow, after all._ _

__And then nothing. Nothing else._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	13. 4D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4D: Go with the flow. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

What was the worst that could happen? He figures out she’s not the Jedi and kills her? Probably. But the last thing Rey wanted to do was throw away an opportunity like this one. She saw herself in the Jedi’s shoes, ready to take on the evil of the world and fight. It was a far cry from her real life, where the evils of the world were not as simple as some giant war and a bunch of obvious bad guys. Her evils were more subtle, like rent, starvation and minimum wages with no health insurance. These were things she could not fight with her fists or her teeth.

But if she could play along for a little bit in this other life, it would feel nice to be able to fight back, for once.

She stepped up before Kylo’s suspicions took over his desire, and reached out _her_ hand this time. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about me, or any of this. And I’m not going to join you.” His eyes had flickered with a frighteningly quick flush of hope when she’d reached out her hand, but they died out again at her clarification. “But you _know_ I’ve seen your future. Snoke tied us together. But the Force showed me everything. _Everything,_ Ben.”

It was the first time she’d said his real name. Her, Rey, not the Jedi. He didn’t seem as phased as he’d been in the scene at the elevator, and she was a little put out by that.

So she stepped closer.

“Including what happens if you follow this path. I saw how you die. You _must_ believe me.”

She’d hated that ending, anyway. What a waste of a good character - to die for redemption. So cliche. Star Wars writers weren’t always the most original.

“I can prove it.” She told him when doubt filtered into his narrowing gaze. He pursed his lips, waiting.

Here goes nothing, she thought to herself, trying to think back on every detail. Her eyes widened when she remembered;

“Look,” she started rambling, her hands flailing wildly, “any second now this entire ship is about to be torn in half. Like, _actually_ in half. I’m not exaggerating. Holdo is going to lightspeed _through_ this ship and it’s going to be-” She caught herself before she’d started swooning over how cool that moment had been. From where she stood, it wasn’t about to be very _cool_ at all. “Listen, we’re both in danger, but we’re going to survive. You get knocked out, though - and I - “

She what? Abandoned him and left him to attack Crait? What other options were there?

She stepped closer still. Her hands both pressed against his shoulders. It was the most physical touch this man had probably had since he’d left his family, and it was obvious by the shudder that racked his whole body. Still, her hands remained where they were - he needed to realize just how important this was. 

“You need to tell me right now, Ben. Are you going to trust me, or are you going to let this story play out exactly the way I’ve seen? Because you don’t win if you do it your way. I promise you. I _promise_ you. And I don’t want to see you die. Not even you deserve what’s coming next.”

This time, it was her looking up at him with desperation in her eyes, born of something she didn’t even realize had been there. This wasn’t just about living a new life and fighting for what was right, anymore. This was about Ben, about the way he’d sacrificed his life, his power, his _everything_ for the Jedi.

For love.

He’d just done it far, far too late.

So she begged him, just the same way he’d begged the Jedi. She begged him, in a quivering whisper that told a story all on its own. One of how desperate she was to save him from himself.

_”Please.”_

“It’s too late.” He repeated words that sounded like they came from a script - and she remembered he’d said them before, to his father - but there was something different about his voice. He’d sounded terrified when he’d said it to Han Solo. Now, he sounded dubious. Not even he believed them, anymore.

“Do you believe me?” Rey craned her neck to look closer. She could feel the electricity in the air, and it wasn’t the connection between them. She knew their time was running out. “Just answer me that. I’ll cart your knocked out body out of this place, I swear to God Ben, if you just tell me you believe me. That’s all I want to hear.”

He did. He had to. She could see it in his eyes, behind all the fear and lies. She knew he believed her, and yet.

His head shook just once. No. He was going to tell her no.

He never had the chance to speak it.

There were some things you simply couldn’t prepare for. The feeling of heartbreak, for one. The feeling of being torn in two - physically - as the spaceship under your feet was sliced through with yet another ship, sending you flying off into a wall, for another.

She woke up before he did. This was something she’d never seen, which meant she had no precedent for the moment. She knew she would escape, or Chewie would find her, but she had no idea how to get from point A to point B. Thus, she used these few moments of uncertainty and lagged behind, crawling over to Kylo’s unconscious body and dropping down onto her side beside him.

He looked dead, save for the soft rise and fall of his expansive chest. Her hands pressed on that chest, curiosity winning out over decorum and manners. He felt strong and thick, it reminded her of the shirtless scene.

That was a good scene. One of her favorites.

Her hands reached higher, brushing his hair down over his face. That was how Hux found him, she thought. Hidden beneath that hair.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispered. “A dumbass. I was right the first time. You’re the most stubborn man in the entire world. Galaxy. Whatever.”

But he loved the Jedi. Which meant he would love her, if she continued to play this part. It felt so good, to be so sure of someone’s love. To know he was destined to do anything for her. Even die.

Except that wasn’t going to happen. Not if she had anything to say about it.

Still, taking him away now meant he would lose so much that would mold him. His fight with Luke, his mother’s death, Hux’s betrayal - Kylo wasn’t ready to give up on his ideals just because she’d said _please_. If Rey wanted to save him - _and she did_ , she realized; she wanted to save this fictional man more than anything, now. If Rey wanted to save him, she would have to wait for the right time to do it.

Now was not that time.

She had no idea how long the comic book would let her stay within its pages, but if it was left up to her, she’d already decided she was in it for the long haul.

And her ending was going to be much, _much_ better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **//YOUR STORY ENDS HERE. TO START A NEW STORY PLEASE RETURN TO CHAPTER 1.//**


	14. Credits

This fic started out as an idea for a one shot that I wanted to do real quick to get my writing mojo back so I could get into Breaking Point again, and then it just sort of got a mind of its own. Hope you had fun with it! If I get a moodboard it'll probably be added into this chapter later on. 

I want to thank my amazing betas who all took different paths and did an amazing job making sure this wasn't just a bunch of rambling nonsense! Thank you to [Killtheselights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killtheselights/pseuds/Killtheselights), [Aicosu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/pseuds/Aicosu), and [Peyton_0727](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peyton_0727/pseuds/Peyton_0727)!

And thank you to A-ha for your inspiring video, as well as Netflix for Bandersnatch which made me believe in the joy of bad endings. 

Follow me on twitter [@alania57](https://twitter.com/alania57),tumblr [@every-day-is-star-wars-day](https://every-day-is-star-wars-day.tumblr.com/), or instagram [@miss_stormtrooper](https://www.instagram.com/miss_stormtrooper/), because what is consistency in usernames? I don't know her.


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